With a simple read tagline of “Now what?” the movie industry has added its latest film, “Post Grad,” to the pantheon of “That is so true” flicks.

After years of following her life plan of success, Ryden Malby (ALexis Bledel) graduates college with immediate plans to work as a publisher at her dream firm in Los Angeles, only to have her dreams quickly crushed when she is passed over for the position. With no options left (and a totaled car), she has no choice but to move back home with her zany family and suffer the agony of job-hunting as a college graduate with no job experience and a degree in English.

She is also forced to take a taxi to and from her interviews, which often end in failure.

Sound familiar?

Since the current recession is limiting the job market for recent college graduates, many more students than expected are finding themselves without a job, money and a place to stay. It’s getting increasingly harder for college graduates to get their foot in the door and it’s about time the film industry brought this issue to the forefront.

After all, Hollywood has the tendency to release movies that serve to speak to the general audience, as films we are meant to relate to. Their characters serve as caricatures for us to feel sympathy, as we pity them for the dramatic pitfalls we too have often found ourselves in. Situations often inspire a sincere “Oh my gosh, that is so true!”

“Post Grad” has a high possibility of pushing former “Gilmore Girl” Bledel to full-blown movie stardom because of this relatability.

Sure, there was “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” but “Post Grad” is much more memorable and grown-up for Bledel. She delivers a self-conscious, yet subtly endearing performance as the lost college graduate — a more matured version of Rory Gilmore who has to learn that life isn’t always what you plan it to be.

And it doesn’t hurt that she has a best friend who secretly loves her, played by Zach Gilford of NBC’s “Friday Night Lights,” since that plot point ultimately becomes the movie’s conflict of interest of following your dreams or following your heart.

But it’s the Malby family troubles that bring the movie full circle. Headed by Michael Keaton as a father who attempts to march to the beat of his own drum, to say the least, Ryden’s family acts as the support system while also suffering its own private dramas: Dad tries to support his family while trying to stay true to himself, Mom (Jane Lynch) is afraid her younger son is “weird” and Grandma (played by always sarcastically side-splitting Carol Burnett) is busy searching for her perfect coffin, banging her oxygen tank into people’s heads and eating Cheetos at her granddaughter’s graduation.

Keaton and Burnett’s performances are so pitch-perfect that their side-plots grab more attention than the main storyline.

What makes the movie work is that it never takes itself too seriously. It has off-the-wall antics, zingy one-liners and a talented cast of actors who play off one another for comic effect so one can just sit back and enjoy watching.

The movie itself is more a study of family dynamics. As long as they have one another, things couldn’t be better. Though one could easily predict the ending from just watching the trailer, predictability is not the point. In a world so unstable as ours, it’s not always bad to look on the bright side of things and have a little fun.

And to say the least, “Post Grad” surely continues this trend of truth for the American (college) audience.

It’s an eager little film that attempts to please, and it’s exactly the little things that serve to please, whether it be sock puppets, pink coffins, belt buckles, cats in pizza boxes or Eskimo pies.

— Alex Ewald is a University College freshman